At the age of 14, Kifayat Mammadova was married and already an expectant mother. A year and a half later, her marriage had failed, her child had died, and she was on the road to Baku from her village in the mountains of southern Azerbaijan in search of a new life.

Barely literate, 18-year-old Mammadova now works as a waitress at a Baku café. Her husband, six years her senior, left for Russia for work soon after the death of their child and did not return. “It was not possible to live with his parents, but my father did not allow me to return to our home,” she related. “I had to escape to Baku.”

Mammadova’s parents had forced her to get married at a local mosque, thus leaving her legally vulnerable. Her story is far from unique in Azerbaijan, and it’s part of a pattern that Azerbaijani authorities want to end by holding parents and mullahs criminally responsible for underage marriages.

State Committee on Family, Women and Children Chairwoman Hidjran Huseynova claims that an incorrect understanding of the teachings of Islam is the main cause of weddings before the legal age of marriage (after 17 years old). “Parents believe that Islam encourages early marriage and often force their daughters [to marry]. But a kid who is 15 to 17 years old is not ready to create a family, neither psychologically nor physiologically,” Huseynova said.

sábado, marzo 12, 2011

By ELLEN BARRY

MOSCOW — The police in Azerbaijan arrested 50 protesters on Saturday, the second day of demonstrations in Baku, the capital, calling for the resignation of President Ilham Aliyev, whose family has been ruling the oil-rich state since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Police officers cordoned off the site of an antigovernment protest that drew hundreds Saturday in Baku, Azerbaijan's capital.

Several hundred protesters gathered Saturday for a rally organized by an opposition party, Musavat, which intended to ride the wave of revolts in the Middle East and North Africa. On Friday, about 60 people showed up to protest, following instructions on a Facebook page to wear red and find one another on the streets.

"You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother" - Albert Einstein

"It is inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office" - H. L. Menken

"I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented" -Elie Wiesel

"Stay hungry, stay foolish" - Steve Jobs

"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert , in five years ther'ed be a shortage of sand" - Milton Friedman

"The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less" - Vaclav Havel